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The american dream is to be the very best. Like noone ever was. To beat them is our real test, to exploit them our cause.

Pretty much. Though stereotyping americans is unfair, the dream itself is more-or-less just a capatalists wet fantasy. We all want more, now, with no effort. That's what we always wanted, that's what our dream was. We wanted security without surrendering rights. We wanted happiness without surrendering practicality. We wanted freedom without surrendering security. It was and is a cyclical pipedream where chasing one leads us deprived of another, but we still dream and hope we can have it all. Though not really "we", only ourselves because everyone will go to any extent, no matter how much it deprives another of it, to achieve their own dream.

The american dream isn't what we want it to be, it isn't what we tell people it is, it isn't what it used to be. It used to be to secure our natural rights (life liberty and property) without being the oppressive thing we ran from. It's become securing all the property we can, going out of our way to make our lives the best, and forcing our "justice" on other countries. We are far from special, we are far from the best. But who wants to admit defeat. Not an american. So our dream has changed to do whatever it takes to be the very best. To feed our self imposed sense of superiority and rights.

I think it's more like "(insert country name here) Dream" because what actually makes you think America is the only country when this cliche family moves there and hopes to succeed? For me it's more like "Netherlands Dream" or "Irelands/UK Dream".

The American dream has always been an ideology and nothing more.
Like religion, a mindset to help people deal with their tough situations, and to give hope that they can get somewhere if they try hard enough, even if in reality, it is not the case.

The people(or man), who made the term was probably pretty clever. I'm pretty sure that a minimum wage worker, with no prospects, will work much harder if he's naive enough to think he'll one day be boss. It's a great way of pushing people of the lower classes into working their asses off for only the idea of potential gain.

Ironically, when the states were founded, they buildt it with slavery. Tell me how slaves got to take part of the American dream? It's obvious that the concept was a sham from the start.

Now, due to the impossibility of systematically and efficiently ruling extremely large countries, polarization of public opinion, poor public education and messy politics, the American dream is just as limited as it always was - limited to certain people of very specific backgrounds.
It is funny, that through the entire U.S history, despite repeating this axiom over and over again, it has never once been true for all it's inhabitants, and not even close.

I can mention quite a few countries(Most of Scandinavia, Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland etc) where the chances of achieving the "American dream", is actually higher than in the U.S - Mainly due to having much less poverty and social differences between than in the U.S.

Belief in the American Dream can give people the ambition and drive they need to succeed. True, it is an ideology "and nothing more" as hian stated, but like any ideology, it's the people who internalize it and not the ideology itself that has power.

My parents are immigrants, a good majority of my friends have parents who are immigrants. I fully expect that they would have succeeded in Canada or England or Switzerland or anywhere else, but they wanted to come to America because they believed in this dream, that America was a place that they could prosper and thrive. And because they believed in this, this worked extra hard to achieve happiness and prosperity. Was there some mythical force called the American Dream that guided their way? Of course not. Ideas themselves are meaningless, but when people believe in something, the effect of an idea can be apparent to all.

^
Quite true. It's just ironic that we speak of the "American dream", as if other countries and people in other places are somehow intrinsically less motivated to prosper, or that you're somehow more likely to prosper if you go to the U.S. Again, statistically speaking, chances of prospering is higher in a lot of other countries than the states, which means that what was once the trademark of the nation, just isn't working(nor did it ever) anymore.

People don't need to flee from most parts of Europe, in order to get away from dictatorships and economical inequality. Ironically, a lot of people of the working class in the U.S would arguably be better off in countries like Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan.

So, while it might be true that America is still "a land of opportunity", it is no longer "the land of opportunity" - Which makes it redundant to speak of the American dream. Might just as well refer to it as the Industrialized dream, or just "the dream".